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Hitting Training For Baseball & Softball Swing Trainers | Hitting Performance Lab

Pitch Recognition Swing Timing Batting Drills To Keep Eye On & See Ball Better For Baseball Or Softball Hitting

Learn about these pitch recognition swing training timing batting drills to help keep your eye on and see the ball better for baseball or softball hitters.

Batting Baseball: Discover 4-Secrets To Tracking & Timing

Batting Baseball: Discover 4-Secrets To Tracking & Timing

Bob Gibson photo courtesy: BleacherReport.com

Thank you Dr. Mitchell Fung for your questions during our hitting session this week.  I also had a reader bring this up recently, so I figured the following Batting Baseball FAQ was worth doing (works for softball too):

  • Broad v. Fine Focus,
  • Fast v. Slow “Stuff”,
  • Fisherman OR Hunter? and
  • “Start slow and early”.

 

Broad v. Fine Focus

According to Wikipedia, Coach Bob Bennett retired with a 1,302-759-4 win-loss record. #26 was the first number ever retired by Fresno State. He was once president of the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) as well. He was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame and College Baseball Hall of Fame (2010).

I was lucky enough to learn batting baseball tips from Coach Bennett as a player for three years, and to have had multiple conversations over lunch, with him since.

When it comes to batting baseball vision and tracking, Coach Bennett talked about having Broad v. Fine Focus.  Broad Focus would be looking at a spot on the pitcher’s chest, overall physique, or delivery.  It’s basically a rest period for the eyes.

You see, the eyes are highly attracted to movement.  They LOVE to dart and “space out”.  And HATE to stop and stare at one object for any length of time.  Broad Focus is good until after the pitcher breaks his or her’s hands.

Then…

A hitter uses Fine Focus by shifting the eyes to the pitcher’s release point window.

 

Fast v. Slow “Stuff”

I tell my lower level batting baseball hitters to look for either fast or “slow stuff”.  95+% of the time, at the Little League level, hitters should be looking for fast stuff.  It’s rare getting a pitcher to throw slow stuff for consistent strikes.

I use the Batting Baseball Random Pitch Drill, where hitters:

  • Are to look for either fast OR slow stuff (they can’t tell me),
  • Have to stick to their “plan” through a 5-swing round (then evaluate after), and
  • Have to hold their “mechanical layers” together (whatever they’re working on).

CLICK HERE to read a Cal Poly baseball study as to why “massed practice” doesn’t develop good game hitters.  The Random Pitch Drill is geared for zero-or-one-strike counts.  Of course, with 2-strikes, the hitter has to cover ALL pitches.

 

Fisherman OR Hunter?

One of my friends and blog readers from Canada, Bob Hall, shared this batting baseball tip with me awhile back.

He took a “beast” of a hitter, his son Quin, to a showcase camp where a scout revealed a simplified hitting strategy.  You’re either a:

  1. Fisherman – throws bait out and waits for fish to bite, OR
  2. Hunter – that stalks their prey…

I tell my hitters, when the pitcher is wild, then be a fisherman.  When they’re throwing a lot of strikes, then become a hunter.  I work this in with my hitters during the Random Pitch Drill…somedays I’m wild OR am trying to bait them in biting on slow stuff (when I know they’re looking for fast), and in these cases, they become a fisherman.

 

“Start Slow & Early”

This was the “magic pill” Jose Bautista swallowed (featured commentary in the video above) before the 2010 season.  It’s a batting baseball glimpse into explaining how he changed his swing.

I explain this to my hitters in this way…imagine an Olympic archer looking to use precision to hit the bullseye of a target.  He or she uses the bow string to load that arrow with potential energy.  They start slow and early.  Once the decision is made to release all that potential energy (the arrow/bow string), BOOM!  The arrow explodes to its target.

The batting baseball hitter needs to think about preparing their swing the same way.  Take it from Joey Bats, one of the smallest big hitters in baseball!

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See Ball Better & Improve Your Swing! | Watch Mike Trout's Swing Breakdown

See Ball Better Examples, Keep Eye On Ball Drills, Head Position In, Or Still Baseball & Softball Hitting Tips For Kids

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Discover how to see the ball better with batting examples from this Mike Trout swing analysis.  Learn keep eye on the ball drills and head position in and still baseball or softball hitting tips for kids.

Mike Trout Video: Why Consistency Won’t Improve

 

 

Mike Trout: 3 Reasons Why Consistency Won't Improve

Posted to Hitting Performance Lab’s Facebook page…

…This three-part video series will analyze how to optimize vision, tracking, and timing.  This Part-1 video, featuring Mike Trout, will be unwrapping how the best mechanics in the world mean nothing without proper vision.  In this game, we live and die by how consistent we are.

In this post, we’ll go over:

  • Physically impossible to keep eyes on the ball,
  • How much and when head movement is okay, and
  • Building consistency with vision.

CLICK HERE for an interesting academic study on six elite female shot putters.  Results found head movement during rotation can influence the movements of the limbs and trunk.

SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:

Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.

Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.

Right Course For You? Take Quiz Now

Physically Impossible to Keep Eyes on the Ball

In a study by A. Terry Bahill, titled “Baseball Players Cannot Keep Their Eyes on the Ball”, his findings say this:

“We have shown that no one could keep his eye continuously on the ball as it flies from the pitcher to the plate.  For our professional athlete, the ball was always more than 2-degrees off his fovea before it came within 5-ft of the plate.  However, when the ball is off your fovea, you can still see with peripheral vision.  However, with peripheral vision, the ball would only appear as a white blur, you would not see details.”

The finding that was most interesting in the study, using University students as a control for the study, was:

“Most of our student subjects tracked the ball with either head movements alone or eye movements alone, but not both…After the ball crossed the plate, the students usually made large eye or head movements, whereas the gaze of the professional athlete was quite steady…The stance of our professional athlete was very repeatable.  At the beginning of the pitch, his head position was the same (within 1-degree) for each of the three experimental pitches we recorded.  When he was looking at the ball in the beginning of the experiment, his eyes were rotated 22-degrees to the left; his head was rotated left 65-degrees (yaw), was bowed down 23-degrees (pitch), and was tilted right 12-degrees (roll).”

The professional hitter in the study was right handed.

What’s interesting with hitters like Mike Trout, is that they have to use a bit of head and eye movement when tracking the incoming pitch.  Not one or the other. However, nobody on earth, EVER, has been proven to keep both eyes on a pitched ball continuously to home plate.

In the study, A. Terry Bahill said, in order to do that, the ball would have to be traveling at around 25-mph, in which case, it would NEVER reach home plate in softball or baseball.

 

How Much and When Head Movement is Okay

Olympic throwers move their heads forward (including Javelin, Discus, and Hammer).  Lacrosse players do too.  And so do Pitchers!

For a hitter like Mike Trout, forward head movement, dropping the “eye-line”,  are okay…until landing.  I say, get head movement out of the way early.  Mike Trout does strikeout quite a bit, which may be attributed to the dropping eye line.

The hitter told to “Sit back”, keeps the head still early, but moves it after the landing position and during the Final Turn.  This is not good for improving consistency.

 

Building Vision Consistency like Mike Trout

How-to improve consistency with vision:

  • Understand the swing is a “snapping towel” (forward first, then back),
  • Keep head in-line with spine,
  • Use the study finding parameters above, to know how much head and eye movement keeps consistency, and
  • Maintain a moderate swing tempo and relax the jaw (not over-swinging).

CLICK HERE for the Josh Hamilton Part-2 Video: Coaches Don’t Tell You This (About Timing)…

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Keep Head Position Still, Eyes On, & See Ball Better Baseball Softball Hitting With Stride Length

Keep Head Position Still, Eyes On, & See Ball Better Baseball Softball Stride Length Hitting | Swing Drills For Batting

Learn how to keep a hitter’s head position still, eyes on the ball, and see the baseball or softball better hitting with stride length.  Discover how in these batting swing drills.

Why Late Head Movement Fails & Early Head Movement Succeeds

 

 

This is Part-3 of a 3-part softball hitting tips for kids (works well for baseball too) video series coming straight out of the Reaction Time Mastery online video course…

Softball Hitting Tips for Kids: Reaction Time Mastery

Sick of struggling to get your hitters on-time, balanced, and keeping high Ball Exit Speeds, especially while hitting off-speed and breaking pitches?  This online video course (7-modules total) reveals cutting edge science on the topics of: Vision, Tracking, Timing, and Forward Momentum.  Finally, you’ll be able to track pitches crystal clear, accelerate reaction time decision-making, & get ON-TIME without losing swing effectiveness with this “secret” online video course you can’t live without.

If you haven’t already, then CLICK the Link below to…

Get Access to The Reaction Time Mastery Online Video Course

In this softball hitting tips for kids video post, we’ll be answering the following reader questions:

“What is your opinion of FOMO’s [Forward Momentum] impact on being able to hit the curveball? Wide stance vs. Narrow Stance in relationship to FOMO. Does wider give more balance and ability to see the ball better, recognize curveball?”

We’ll discuss:

  • Myth of ‘keeping the head still’,
  • Proprioception & dynamic movement,
  • First baseman stretching to receive a throw, and
  • Watching TV upside down…

SCIENCE-BASED TRAINING:

Improve your hitting strategy dramatically by applying human movement principles.

Learn not only how and what to train but also the science behind the methods.

Right Course For You? Take Quiz Now

Myth of ‘Keeping the Head Still’ 

Softball Hitting Tips for Kids: Sierra Romero Head Movement

Use the blue pole (red arrow is pointing to) as a frame of reference, and compare to Sierra Romero’s head position…down and forward. Photo courtesy of YouTube user: Tony Jimenez

CLICK HERE for a post I did analyzing Mike Trout’s swing titled, “Why Consistency Won’t Improve”.  I cited a study that found it’s a physical impossibility to continuously follow the ball to the plate (for both baseball and softball), with both eyes, unless the ball is traveling 21mph, in which case, it wouldn’t make it to EITHER plate.

As the Bahill study in the above article suggests, it’s critical the hitter uses both head AND eye movements for tracking.  And even more vital, is that the hitter is consistent with the pitch, roll, and yaw positions of the head.

CLICK HERE for a very candid Washington Post article featuring Greg Maddux titled, “Baseball Hall of Fame: Greg Maddux used methodical approach to get to Cooperstown”.  He discussed how to make every pitch he threw look eerily similar to the hitter.

He likened this strategy to how the eyes make adjustments to driving on the freeway at high speeds.  In other words, even though the odometer has read 70-mph for the past hour, your eyes may perceive your speed to be 30-mph.

According to A. Terry Bahill, their are four eye movement systems that help keep the eye fovea on the object of interest (a pitched ball):

  1. Saccadic – used in reading text or scanning a roomful of people,
  2. Vestibulo-Ocular – used to maintain fixation during head movements,
  3. Vergence – used when looking between near and far objects, and
  4. Smooth-Pursuit – used when tracking a moving object.

Bahill says these four eye movement systems have four independent control systems.

You see, we have the necessary equipment to move, track, and hit a moving object…especially when pitch speeds are being manipulated.

Which leads us to softball hitting tips for kids involving…

 

Proprioception & Dynamic Movement

Softball Hitting Tips for Kids: Head Movement During Stages Leading up to Contact

For more clarification on this, please CLICK this graph, from the Dan Farnsworth FanGraphs article, and read under the “Keep Your Head Still” sub-title & below the graph.

So I don’t have to cover material that I’ve already covered in depth…

CLICK HERE to read a post titled, “Perfect Swing Hacking with Forward Momentum”.  Pay special attention to the section sub-titled, “Balance without Thinking”.

In the same post, read the next section sub-titled, “Debunking a Common Objection & a Study”. In that part of the post, I mention a FanGraphs.com analysis that Dan Farnsworth did about the top 50 hitters in 2012.  ZERO of them had zero head movement pre-Final Turn.

The verdict is in…

Here’s an important ABSOLUTE to hitting…

Early head movement is okay, pre-Final Turn.  But late head movement isn’t, during the Final Turn.

First Baseman Stretching to Receive a Throw

Softball Hitting Tips for Kids: Chris Davis stretching to a throw

Chris Davis doing the splits to receive a throw. Photo courtesy: i.ytimg.com

Every dynamically moving athlete, whether they’re throwing a ball, hammer, javelin, discus, or swinging a bat moves their head and eyes towards their target before actually throwing or swinging their respective objects.

Here’s another good example,

For a moment, imagine a first base-person stretching to receive a throw from the left side of the diamond…

What are their head and eyes doing in anticipation of the catch?

Are they traveling forward and down?

To ensure the catch, they moving their eyes to as close to impact with the glove as possible.

Same with hitting.  Hitters should ‘get shorter’ to landing, and ‘stay shorter’ during the turn.

So far, we know that the brain is fully capable of thriving in a forward moving environment.  Additionally, Forward Momentum’s impact on hitting a curveball has more benefits than cons…

One of the benefits comes from the first of Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion…

“An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.”

In other words, it’s easier to keep a body moving that’s ALREADY MOVING (meaning transferring Forward into Rotational Momentum).  Contrary to getting a body at rest, moving again.

Let’s finish these softball hitting tips for kids with…

 

Watching TV Upside Down

Softball Hitting Tips for Kids: Watching TV Upside Down

Photo courtesy: http://www.farah.net.au/

Have you ever done this?

Try it as an experiment.  Watch a movie/show and note how strange everyone looks as they seem to ‘bob’ up and down when they walk.

Yep, when we walk OUR HEAD AND EYES move!!!

By the way, this also happens when we run, grab a can of soup out of the pantry, or are a part of a Navy Seal team doing a ‘sweep’ in a hostile target’s house.

Remember when I brought up the Greg Maddux article about the eyes adjusting to speed and movement?

Remember the four eye movement systems that A. Terry Bahill mentioned in his study?

Remember us talking about the role that proprioception plays in dynamic movement?

Returning to the original softball hitting tips for kids reader questions:

 “What is your opinion of FOMO’s [Forward Momentum] impact on being able to hit the curveball? Wide stance vs. Narrow Stance in relationship to FOMO. Does wider give more balance and ability to see the ball better, recognize curveball?”

Forward Momentum is a MUST to have the ability to CRUSH  curveball.  Wide or narrow stance doesn’t matter, just as long as the hitter looks like they can make an athletic move, and not in the extremes of the two.

However, Forward Momentum or shifting foot pressure MUST be present to be an effective hitter.

The question of balance and the ability to recognize off-speed pitches, has to do with the environment that we train our hitters in.

Think about the Navy Seal ‘sweep’ team…if they trained at the gun range by standing still and shooting a stationary target…I don’t think they’d be very effective at hitting their ‘target’.

They’re trained not only to hit moving targets from a stationary position (think snipers), but they’re also trained to shoot a moving target while moving themselves!

The bottom line to softball hitting tips for kids is this…

Softball hitting tips for kids MUST include:

  • Practicing some form of Forward Momentum or shifting foot pressure,
  • Varying batting practice distances,
  • Hitting random pitching during batting practice,
  • Doing active sit-ins during pitcher bullpens,
  • Training to recognize not only pitch spin, but pitch shapes…

We cover ALL of these softball hitting tips for kids in The Reaction Time Mastery online video course mentioned at the beginning of this post.

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